Former Microsoft network engineer was sentenced to 18 months in prison for participating in ransomware scheme

The US District Court accused a Microsoft network engineer of ransomware fraud, and the network engineer joined Microsoft in 2014. Although he has become a network engineer for a top technology giant like Microsoft, the ransomware scam he participated in 2012 is still being discovered.

Court documents show that the network engineer was involved in a ransomware scam in 2012 and then helped the ransomware developers to launder money and so on.

The ransomware at the time was not paid through the virtual currency bitcoin when the criminal gang asked the victim to pay with a prepaid card issued abroad. When a user is infected with the ransomware, a fake FBI warning is displayed on the screen, claiming that the user has viewed or distributed pornographic content has violated federal law.

The user must pay the ransom to unlock the ransomware and decrypt the files, but it is not clear how many victims are deceived. Initially, the engineer strongly denied involvement in ransomware scams, rejected all complaints and did not recognize ties with cybercriminals. But in the end, no matter how to deny it before the evidence is conclusive, it does not help, so the engineer also admitted that he did participate in ransomware fraud in 2012-2013.

It was originally expected that the network engineer would be imprisoned for up to ten years, but fortunately, it was only participation rather than mastermind and therefore was not sentenced to heavy.

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